- VERDICT
The Hisense C1 4K TriChroma projector provides a stunning larger than life home entertainment experience with impressive sound and picture quality that’s so easy to set up a child could do it.
We love a big screen experience at home – look at the growing size of popular TVs. But another way to go even bigger is with a projector and the Hisense C1 could be just the answer.
For many people the mere mention of a projector fills them with dread because they envisage a long and complicated set up process as well as a high price tag.
After all, projectors are usually what customers with larger budgets and dedicated rooms purchase to achieve cinema-like qualities in their home.
I know this because I am one of these customers. I have a dedicated home theatre room, and it’s filled with expensive equipment.
It is my passion – I don’t drink or smoke – this is what I love – enjoying movies in their highest quality at home.
So when Hisense came along to offer me the C1 mini projector to review I was more than curious to see what sort of quality it can produce.
The projector in my home theatre is a Sony and it rests on a sturdy mount on the ceiling. It’s big, it’s not cheap and the picture is so sharp I should carry band aids.
The Hisense C1 4K TriChroma Laser Mini projector has a rectangular shape and is about the size of a four-slice toaster.
And it doesn’t look like a projector.
But that’s a good thing because it’s designed to be approachable – and that starts with the design.
Hisense is positioning the C1 to appeal to a customer who is not too savvy with the inner workings of home theatres, multi-speakers systems, receivers and multiple sources.
They just want a big screen experience with impressive 4K resolution, great colour and ease of use. Tick, tick, tick.
We were surprised at how easy the unit was to position and set up. It is so easy you can easily take the C1 room to room on your house.
The Hisense C1 is capable of projecting between 65-inch and 300-inch but this is determined by how far away from the wall you want to take the projector.
For our review we had the projector back between 3.5m and 4m and we were able to create about a 140-inch image.
We know this because the projector was aimed at our fixed 150-inch screen in our home theatre and it couldn’t quite fill it.
There is no optical zoom on the projector so to get a bigger picture – and if you have the space – you need to take it further away from the surface you’re projecting on.
It sounds great to have a 300-inch picture, but you would need to take the projector back nearly 8m.
And as soon as we had it in position it automatically focused and straightened itself up.
Even if you have the projector off to one side at an angle it will still square up the image and focus automatically.
It will even avoid obstacles like light switches and other objects on the wall and shift the image into the clear space.
The feet on the unit are adjustable and we had to make a slight adjustment and the C1 went into its auto adjustment mode again.
Getting the focus right is half the battle with a projector and that’s done automatically for you here. 
Positioning the C1 for most users would probably be on the coffee table in front of them or on a small stand just in from to viewing position.
The C1 doesn’t have to be too high off the ground. It does a great job beaming upwards to create an image at the eye level of the viewers.
Our projector is mounted on the ceiling and it is possible to position the C1 in this way, but you would need to carefully workout the size of the picture you want to achieve to get the right position and distance.
The Hisense C1 does not have lens shift or optical zoom.
Lens shift gives you a fair large latitude in moving the picture left, right and up and down.
Because the C1 doesn’t have that you are limited in where you can place it.
And without optical zoom the picture size is purely determined by how close or far away you position the C1.
You can make small manual tweaks to the picture size, shape and alignment but the auto adjustment is still the easiest and fastest way to get the image right.
Once set up and focussed you are presented with the same VIDAA U6 operating system you would see with a regular Hisense TV.
The C1 only has two HDMI ports – one has ARC (audio return channel) support which can be used for a soundbar.
Speaking of sound, there are 20W Dolby Atmos JBL speakers built into the C1 projector which will sound better and louder than the speakers built into a flat screen TV.
But the sound will be coming from the unit in front of you – not from the screen.
If you wanted to go to the trouble, you could make the C1 part of a multi-speaker system but we think the ideal customer is someone looking for the projector to work for them right out of the box – and it does.
In terms of picture quality we were blown away.
The Hisense C1 can achieve 110 per cent of the BT 2020 colour space and can generate 1.07 billion colours.
It also has an impressive dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000 and 1600 lumens brightness.
At this level of brightness it is best to be viewed in a darker room or at night. If you have a super bright open plan living area this might ntt be the best solution for you.
Users can access all their favourite streaming services and enjoy impressive 4K quality on a grander scale.
The black levels were also excellent and the colours were spot on without being pumped up and fake.
And like a TV, the C1 also has Dolby Vision and HDR10 and HLG which really dips into its huge contrast capabilities without losing detail in the brighter and darker areas.
The picture is also smooth thanks to the fast onboard processor so watching sport and high-paced content is a joy.
Sound quality is better than what you’d hear from a regular TV, but it didn’t give us much of a surround sound effect. In a smaller room this would sound better.
We would have also loved to see more HDMI inputs – to link a 4K player, a gaming console and a set-top box like Fetch or Foxtel.
Users would, of course, have to position these sources either right beside the speaker – perhaps inside a coffee table or use a really long cord back to their entertainment unit.
But for the most part it is a standalone unit that connect to your wi-fi and allow you to access your favourite shows via all the major streaming services.
It does have an Ethernet port if you want to connect to your broadband connection with a cable.
It also has Airplay onboard so you can stream from your Apple device.
What it doesn’t have is an antenna so you can’t watch free to air TV unless you access the live feed from respective catch up apps or via a set-top box which has its own antenna connection.
The Hisense C1 4K TriChroma projector is available now and is priced at $3,499.
VERDICT
The Hisense C1 4K TriChroma projector provides a stunning larger than life home entertainment experience with impressive sound and picture quality that’s so easy to set up a child could do it.
